


479. carvings of gods

by piggy09



Series: The Sestre Daily Drabble Project [308]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-04
Updated: 2017-05-04
Packaged: 2018-10-27 22:58:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10818516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: “Can’t leave you alone down here for five bloody minutes?” Sarah says, coming down the stairs. “Helena, bloody hell, is thatpermanentmarker.”“Yes,” says Helena, who hopes it will be permanent.





	479. carvings of gods

Helena has a black marker in the pocket of her jacket, so she’s using it to draw girls on the walls. Some of the girls are Sarah, and some of the girls are Helena, and the good thing – the important thing – is that it’s almost impossible to tell them apart. The marker squeaks on the walls of the basement, stutters on the brick. Helena is crouched on one of the machines for washing so that she can reach the highest parts of the wall, and she shifts from foot to foot as she thinks.

So: Helena and Sarah are sisters. So: Helena is down here, all by herself in the basement, while Sarah talks to Amelia alone. So: Helena and Sarah are sisters, still; this hasn’t changed in the brief time since she’s stopped thinking it.

A small, daring thing: Helena draws one of the arms a little too long, so that two of the stick figures are holding hands. She holds her breath; nothing breaks. The two girls stand there on the wall and they’re together. Helena caps the marker and watches them, unblinking, in case something goes horrible.

Behind her the door to the basement opens. “Jesus shit,” Sarah says.

Blasphemy; Helena forgives her. She could turn around but what if when she turns around the drawing vanishes? She doesn’t turn around. She has her back to Sarah, Sarah could do anything, it makes Helena’s bones shiver. Sarah could kill her. Helena is so good at not putting her back to things. She has her back to Sarah.

“Can’t leave you alone down here for five bloody minutes?” Sarah says, coming down the stairs. “Helena, bloody hell, is that _permanent_ marker.”

“Yes,” says Helena, who hopes it will be permanent. She can feel Sarah at her back; she turns around. “Is this my house now.”

Sarah folds her arms over her chest. She looks angry in a way that is a shield, like the way she got angry when she leaned down to spit at Helena that them being sisters didn’t mean anything. Helena is – was – could have been – the sword of God, and it aches. It all aches. “No,” she says. “You’re just here ‘til we figure out what to do with you.”

“Oh,” Helena says. She turns back to the wall. She draws another girl; this one is definitely her, and she’ll stay here even if Helena has to go.

“That’s it?” Sarah says. Helena tilts her head backwards, all the way, so she almost falls over, so the world is upside-down. Sarah, upside-down, looks like she’s smiling. Helena tilts her head a little bit. Sarah is frowning. She moves her head back.

“Yes,” she says.

Sarah sighs, a sharp angry sound. She still looks angry-like-a-shield. Helena, still upside-down, holds out the marker. “Do you want to make one.”

“No,” Sarah says, “I don’t.” She comes over and takes the marker anyways; then she puts a cap on it and shoves it into her back pocket. Oops. Helena watches Sarah upside-down, in case that makes her make more sense. It doesn’t. Sarah puts her hand gingerly on Helena’s skull and pushes Helena’s head all the way back up, so Helena is looking at the wall again.

She points to the two she’s been staring at. “They’re holding hands.”

“They sure are,” Sarah mutters.

“Kira held my hand,” Helena says, “before the accident. I have never done this before.”

When you sit very close to an old broken heater, you can feel the liquid heat pouring out of the heater and onto your skin. By this Helena means: Sarah is uncomfortable. It’s all over Helena’s skin.

“Can I have marker,” she says.

“No,” Sarah says.

Helena finally turns away from the wall and looks at Sarah. “You’re upset,” she says, “that we’re sisters.”

Sarah hands her the marker.

Helena flips it between her hands, the way she would if it was a knife. It’s not a knife. Frowning, she turns to the wall and draws two more stick figures holding hands. She presses down very hard on the wall so that the pen squeaks. If it squeaks enough Sarah will do something, won’t she? She’ll have to do something. If she’s angry. With Helena.

“I’m not upset,” Sarah says.

Helena snorts.

“I’m serious,” Sarah says, sounding serious. “I’m – it’s just – it’s a lot, yeah? I’m really – I’m not upset.” By the end of that almost-sentence she sounds a little scared, and a little surprised, but not very upset. Helena puts the cap back on the marker as a present for her.

“I wanted it to be you,” she says, and presses her finger to the long dark lines she’s drawn for Sarah’s hair. The ink clings to her fingerprint when she pulls her finger away. “I didn’t even dream of dreaming that I could have a sister, but if I had a dream it would have been of you.”

“Christ,” Sarah breathes, and she climbs up onto the washing machine next to Helena. The metal groans. “Don’t you dare tell S we did this,” Sarah says, and Helena shudders all over at how normal Sarah makes it sound. It sounds so easy. That they have a secret, that Helena knows who this S-person is, that she would tell her, that the two of them are doing something together that S-person can’t know about. Helena loves Sarah so much it might kill her.

Sarah holds out her hand; Helena passes her the marker. Sarah uncaps it and draws a stick figure, sharp jagged lines. “You and me,” she says. “Same womb.”

“Yes,” Helena says. Sarah passes back the marker. Helena draws another stick figure next to Sarah’s, but doesn’t put their hands together. She hands the marker to Sarah.

“How are you,” Sarah says. “I mean. With this.”

“I don’t know,” Helena says, taking the marker back after Sarah’s done. “Your words and Tomas’ words are in my head, and they are fighting, and I know your words will win but they are taking a long time and also there is blood.”

Sarah makes an _mn_ noise in the back of her throat and slowly presses her side against Helena’s. Helena’s hand jolts on the marker, so that the girl she’s drawing is suddenly reaching out for something instead of having her arm down where it should be.

Sarah snorts. “Whoops,” she says, but it isn’t mean, somehow it isn’t mean, Helena loves her. She passes the marker back. Sarah puts it against the wall and draws again.

“I want to stay,” Helena says, ripping open her words and letting them bleed. “Sarah, I missed you my whole life, I want to stay with you.”

“I can’t promise that,” Sarah says. She holds out the marker. Helena doesn’t take it, just smells the knife of it in the air between them. Sarah keeps holding it out and Helena keeps not taking it.

“Please,” she says. Sarah puts the marker down on the washing machine and folds her hands around her face.

“Shite,” she says, but in a way that says she didn’t even mean to.

Helena picks up the marker, stabs it into the wall, draws so hard that the marker starts bending under her fingers. When she’s done she throws the marker on the washing machine again, very hard, hard enough to make it go _clang_. She’s breathing heavy. It’s not that she’s crying, it’s just that she might be soon.

Sarah looks up and right at it: the drawing of the two stick figures hugging each other. Their faces are blank but both of them know what those faces look like. Or: each of them knows what one of those faces look like. The other one is still a mystery, even though it shouldn’t be.

Helena folds her arms around herself and rocks back and forth. Sarah’s breathing is dragging in and out of her chest, Helena can hear it, Helena knows what Sarah might be doing soon—

And Sarah has pulled Helena close, the two of them awkwardly half-hugging from their crouch and from their sit. Helena hugs her back before her brain realizes that Sarah is hugging her. Sarah smells like sweat. Her arms around Helena are warm and solid and they feel so permanent. Helena shudders a sigh against Sarah’s shoulder.

“I can’t promise,” Sarah says, and again: “I can’t promise.”

Helena wants Sarah to promise. She knows Sarah knows, so she doesn’t say it.

“Sarah,” she whispers.

“Yeah.”

“Sometime, after we hug,” she says, quiet quiet, “can you hold my hand.”

Sarah makes a choke-noise. “Yeah,” she says, “alright, Helena, I’ll hold your hand.”

“Thank you,” Helena says, and she moves her head to the side so that she can look at the stick figures on the wall. They still aren’t moving. They’ll be here for such a long time, even after Helena is gone.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please kudos + comment if you enjoyed! :)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [366\. fear](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10826697) by [piggy09](https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09)




End file.
